Our Backyard

Plus, some fantastic news for me: there is a Cheese Lady who comes to the community and sells cheese every week or so! I´ll post more pictures and more entries soon-the internet isn´t as easy as I thought it might be!

First Post From Colombia

I arrived over a week ago and spent a few days in the capital of Bogotá before winding through the mountains and valleys of the Colombia landscape on a ten hour ride to Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city. Bogotá is a city of 7 million atop the Andes at an elevation of about 8000 feet. The temperate climate combined with the high altitude and dense exhaust fumes make for a pleasant if not lung damaging experience. FOR has an team in Bogotá in which two people politically and physically accompanying Colombia social change groups including: The Red Juvenil de Medellín (The Youth Network of Medellín), the ACA (Antioquia Small Farmer’s Association), and AMOR (Women’s Association of Eastern Antioquia). I’ll go into more detail on those groups some point soon. The Bogotá team also does much of the political accompaniment work for the Peace Community as they are in the same city as government offices and embassies. Additionally they know great artists, anarchists and places to eat and be merry. I had a rockin’, if not tiring, couple of days there.

I was in Medellín for less than twelve hours. Paul, the team member who has been in the community for a year met me and we slept the night at the apartment of one of the members of the Red Juvenil and got up at 4:30 to catch a bus to Apartadó. Before we slept we managed to see a bit of Medellín and meet many people involved in non-violent resistance movements there. We were present for the end of a meeting of the artists’ collective of the Red in which they planned their next demonstration against the incarceration of one of their members. This group is truly radical, the direct actions they plan are carried out in a heavily militarized state that doesn’t recognize such familiar concepts as consciences objection. Later that evening we shared an Aguila with one of the leaders of the ACA. He gives presentations all over the region, organizing displaced farmers and working with them to transfer their skills from the countryside to the city.

One of the more recent small world moments happened when a friend of Paul’s from back home met up with us as he was traveling from Peru and stopping in Medellín on his way to Caracas before heading home for the holidays. Paul is from Huntingdon, PA, a town very like and not so far away from my hometown, Somerset. And so there we were, three kids from western Pennsylvania sharing a drink together in Colombia. Yinz wouldn’t have believed it.

Paul and I headed back to our friend’s house to catch a couple hours of sleep before leaving for Apartadó. It was another long and winding bus ride, lasting about 9 hours. We stopped for breakfast around 7 and had arepa (The Colombian, thicker version of the tortilla) cheese, plantains, juevos aliñados (scrambled eggs with tomato and onion), yucca and more food that there wasn’t time to eat. It cost the equivalent of about two dollars. We arrived in Apartadó where it is sticky and hot, a city of about 100,000. After running a few errands we left on a chiva, a jeep-like mode of transportation, not a goat, for all you hispanoparlantes out there. After years of petioning, the government finally fixed the only road up to San Jose and so what had been a terribly bumpy and long hour-plus ride is now about 35 minutes. The absence of the usual military checkpoints also made the trip much faster.

We get off the chiva in San Josecito, the displacement settlement about a ten-minute walk from the small town of San José. The peace community members residing in San José displaced down the road after he installment of a permanent police post in the town center. One of the tenets of the Peace Community is to have no contact with any of the armed actors. A police post is also a threat to any civilian population in guerrilla-controlled territories as it serves as a literal bulls eye for guerrilla operations. All over rural Colombia, the state has installed similar posts in the middle of the civilian population, using civilians as shields and almost daring the guerrilla to take aim.

San Josecito looks less like a displacement camp and more like a small, permanent village. When the community first moved there, they had no proper sanitation, no electricity, no school and shared the few houses they had built. Malaria spread throughout the community and people were at risk for other illness. Now there are many more houses, lights, sanitation, a community garden, a school and a healthy community.

Paul and I tried to hurry in San Josecito as it was 5:30 at that point and the two hour hike up the mountain to our home in the settlement of La Unión is best not done in the dark. We finally got the horse loaded up with my things and the supplies we bought in town and we started up the mountain, me on the horse and Paul on foot. Night falls quickly here and soon we were going up in the dark, crossing the river three times, walking through mud and over rocks, finally arriving about two hours later. Our other teammate, Mirielle was waiting for us with a delicious dinner and a big hug. I can’t really say enough about how great Mirielle and Paul are. I am very lucky to be surrounded by such dedicated, intelligent and loving people. They had a welcome ceremony of sorts ready for me, including the absolutely useful and super cool gift of a good hat, which has already helped to block out the sun and keep the rain out of my eyes. The next morning the welcome continued with a treasure hunt of sorts. They hid notes and surprises around the community in the houses of some of the community members who we most rely upon for treats, chats and motherly care. I found such useful things as a machete, a rain poncho, and a flashlight. More importantly, I was introduced to the women who had already begun to care for me before I even began my year here.

In this circuitous and exceptional way, I arrived. Much has happened in the days since my arrival, but I’ll save that for another post.

And.....she's off!

My flight leaves tomorrow morning at 10AM and I am packed for the year. (One of these bags is filled only with peanut butter.) I fly from Pittsburgh to Orlando. Orlando to Panama City and land at the Bogotá airport around 9pm. The great adventure has almost begun! My next post will be from Colombia.
until then....

Donation Nation

What Your Support Can Do: a friendly guide to making your dollar count

• $7: cost of one FOR T-Shirt, which volunteers wear in the field in order to be easily identified as international accompaniers, keeping them safe and visible
• $20: A nicely sized contribution that definitely pays for something that isn’t obvious to me from a quick look at our budget.
• $50: cost for two team members to travel for a day to communities in eastern Antioquiali>
• $65: cost of one month’s health insurance for one volunteer
• $70: monthly fee for the satellite phone in remote San José de Apartadó, allowing FOR team to communicate when accompanying community members in remote areas or when power is out
• $100: cost of food for one month for FOR team in San José de Apartadó
• $165: cost of transportation from Bogotá to Medellín in order to accompany Colombian Partner Organizations
• $200: monthly stipend for FOR volunteer in Colombia
  
• $250: cost of Visa for one FOR Volunteer for 1 Year
• $300: monthly rent and utilities for the FOR apartment/office in Bogotá
• $550: cost for one way international ticket for volunteer to return to the United States
• $600: annual cost to train new volunteers
• $850: cost to bring Colombian peace leader to the US for speaking tour

International Accompaniment: sounds fancy

Protective International Accompaniment was first applied in Central America during the 1980s as a model of human rights worked based on deterrence, non-intervention and the creation of safe political space. In countries plagued by military and paramilitary rule, control is exercised via arbitrary killings, kidnappings and detentions, ensuring state control over the populace through the destruction of safe political space for democratic participation and conflict resolution. In regimes controlled by terror tactics, non-violent resistance becomes the most viable option for the affected population. Communities struggling against militarized regimes stake much of their existence on the conscience of the international community. It is in these situations that International Accompaniment has been called upon.

From "Unarmed Bodyguards", on volunteers:

"The accompaniment volunteer is literally an embodiment of international human rights concern, a compelling and visible reminder to those using violence that it will not go unnoticed."

In this way, International Accompaniment is helping to create that much needed political space while at the same attempting to observe and report on the human rights situation in general in order to raise awareness in the international community. This means that while I'm on the FOR team, I'll be sending almost daily reports to the office in San Francisco and when appropriate, helping to craft alerts on human rights abuses and recommended actions for people back home. This is where you step in. At times we might ask you to contact your representatives, asking them to support measures in the US Congress or recommendations to the State Department.

Don't forget: the US is heavily involved in funding the Colombian Military. An estimated $728.1 was appropriated under Plan Colombia in 2006, over 81% of that is strictly earmarked for military aid. An estimated $755.9 is to be delivered in 2007. And this accompaniment worked is based on the principle of non-intervention. We are not helping to create the processes of the Peace Community, but rather to ensure that their process is able to develop with as little danger as possible. As an accompanier from the US, a country heavily involved in Colombia, I feel especially called to this work.

As a team, we produce a monthly email newsletter called the "Colombia Peace Presence Update". In it we share news of the Peace Community and Colombian Partner Organizations as well as other news of the peace movement in Colombia. Please send me an email (address on my profile to the right) if you'd like to be included on this list.